Crew-13 Takes Flight: Four People, One Mission, and the Work Beyond Liftoff
2LOUD captures the departure from the launch site as Crew-13 begins its next chapter aboard the International Space Station.
Before the research, the docking, and the first day aboard the International Space Station, there’s the moment everything leaves the ground.
On Thursday, October 1, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 lifted off at 11:10 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Four crew members rode aboard Dragon as Falcon 9 carried them toward an assignment hundreds of miles above Earth.
2LOUD was at the launch site, documenting the crew walkout and liftoff through original photography and video. The walkout put faces to the mission. The launch brought its scale into focus.
Leading the crew is NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins, joined by NASA pilot Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. Kutryk and Teteryatnikov serve as mission specialists.
For Watkins, a geologist who previously flew aboard Crew-4 in 2022, the mission marks a return to orbit. For her three crewmates, it’s their first spaceflight, a shared departure carrying very different personal milestones.
Their trip made history before the first full day was over.
Dragon docked with the station’s Harmony module at 7:05 p.m. EDT, just seven hours and 55 minutes after launch. NASA identified it as the fastest launch-to-docking journey by a U.S. spacecraft in International Space Station history.
That speed delivered the crew to the real assignment: life and work aboard an orbiting laboratory. Their responsibilities include scientific research, technology demonstrations, and the maintenance that keeps the station operating.
Supporting that work are teams on the ground, including Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston. SpaceX monitored Dragon’s flight from Hawthorne, California. Behind the four people making the journey is a much larger network helping keep it moving.
Liftoff commands attention for good reason. The flame, the scale, and the sight of a rocket clearing the launch structures make it a moment worth documenting. But those images are the opening of a story that continues through the crew’s daily work.
For anyone discovering the mission through a launch clip, that’s the next reason to stay interested: the people aboard, the questions they’re investigating, and what their work could help us understand.
Explore 2LOUD’s original launch photography and video below, and follow our continuing Crew-13 coverage.
